Music Teacher magazine is the essential meeting point and resource for music education practitioners.

Whether you teach class music, or are a peripatetic/private instrumental teacher, Music Teacher will provide you with invaluable ideas for your teaching, with substantial online lesson materials and a range of practical features. Packed with reviews, news, comment and debate, as well as the latest jobs, professional development opportunities and fantastic special offers, Music Teacher is all you need to teach music.

Latest News

Search news:

NCEM young composers award winners announced

15 May 2015, Katy Wright

Joshua Urben and John Goldie-Scot

The 2015 National Centre for Early Music (NCEM) young composers awards have gone to Joshua Urben (for the 18 and under category) and John Goldie-Scot (for the 19-25 category).

Urben's Fractos Corde and Goldie-Scot's Why are you in such a hurry? will both receive their premieres from the Dunedin Consort in Glasgow on 2 October.

The competition brief was to create a new setting for a short dramatic scene from one of two works by Monteverdi: Orfeo or Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. The works were to be written for two or three singers, accompanied by a small ensemble of instruments.

Seven finalists were invited to have their works presented in a workshop with the Dunedin Consort. The winners were chosen by a panel comprised of Delma Tomlin (director of the NCEM), Les Pratt (senior music producer at BBC Radio 3) and John Butt (director of the Dunedin Consort).

John Butt said: 'The welcoming environment which the NCEM creates for this event and their enlightened approach to encouraging young composers to write for early instruments through this award is to be applauded. We look forward to polishing the winning pieces in preparation for their premiere later this year.'

Fliter will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat major, with the second half of the concert featuring Mozart’s Symphony No 41, ‘Jupiter’.

The programme also includes a performance of Etudes by Jack Sheen, winner of the orchestra’s 2015 Composers’ Project, which saw ten young composers try their ideas out at Manchester’s new UKFast Auditorium.

Simon Phillippo to join RWCMD as head of keyboard

Simon Phillippo is to join the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD) as head of keyboard at the end of this academic year. He succeeds Richard McMahon, who will retire.

Phillippo said: 'I am delighted to be joining the illustrious team of musicians at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and extremely proud to be following in the footsteps of Richard McMahon as Head of Keyboard. I am looking forward to collaborating extensively with my new colleagues in all departments, and to working with the fine team of staff and young pianists in the Keyboard Department.'

Phillippo comes to the RWCMD after 14 years as pianist, coach and conductor at Welsh National Opera (WNO). He was chorus master for many of WNO's productions, including the first UK staging of Handel's Jephtha and the world premiere of James MacMillan's The Sacrifice.

AQA announces reformed GCSE content with Beatles and DJ splash

14 May 2015, Alex Stevens

A DJ set will become an acceptable form for the performance element of AQA's music GCSE, to be taught from September 2016

AQA has released subject content for its reformed music
GCSE qualification, to be taught from September 2016. AQA has submitted its
plans to Ofqual for accreditation, and other exam boards are set to release
details later today.

The
release comes in the context of a programme of complete GCSE reform, which will
see a new 1-9 grading scale, assessment taking place only at the end of the
two-year period of study, and, according to Ofqual: ‘new, more demanding content, which has been
developed by government and the exam boards’.

AQA’s
GCSE will cover the second movement of Haydn’s Clock symphony
(for the compulsory area of study ‘Western classical tradition 1650-1910’),
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, With a Little Help from My Friends and Within You,
Without You from The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album (Popular music),
Santana’s Supernatural (Traditional music), and the ‘Saturday Night
Waltz’ and ‘Hoedown’ from Copland’s ballet Rodeo (Western classical tradition since 1910).

DJing - using vinyl, CDs or a laptop - has been added to the acceptable forms for the performance element of the qualification.

Under the reformed music GCSEs, 60% of assessment
will be through performance and composition, and 40% will be assessed by exam.

ABRSM sponsors Sing Up music scheme

14 May 2015, Katy Wright

Sing Up is expanding its music scheme thanks to ABRSM funding.

The scheme uses singing to support the primary school music curriculum. Progressing from early years through to Year 6, the programme uses 84 songs from a digital resource. A similar scheme aimed at children from KS3 onwards will be available to secondary schools from later in 2015, also supported by ABRSM.

'We’re delighted to be working with ABRSM on this exciting project,' said Michelle James, chief executive of Sing Up. 'Sing Up has a strong history of encouraging participation in singing activities at primary school and now we want to do more to ensure that singing activity supports teaching and learning in music and that pupils continue singing once they move into secondary school.'

Sing Up launched in 2007 and became a not-for-profit organisation in April 2012. It offers a number of resources, including a song bank of over 600 songs, audio tracks and sheet music. The first annual Sing Up day (18 March) took place in 2010.